


Acid-Etched

by frumious_bandersnatch



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hallucinations, Scars, Self-Harm, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:26:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29982828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frumious_bandersnatch/pseuds/frumious_bandersnatch
Summary: Dean thinks the right word is branded (more like broken). Alastair says burnished. Whatever it is, Hell sticks to him like a burr and he’s shattered into pieces too small for kintsugi, anyways.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Alastair, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 10
Kudos: 12





	Acid-Etched

**Author's Note:**

> TW: self harm, gore, referenced suicide

The fact that Dean Winchester has not shattered into a million tiny pieces is astounding. Because the grace that glued his soul back together after those angels fished him out of hell is… tenuous, at best.

So when the paint starts peeling and he can see the writing on the wall he’s not surprised. He can deal with it. He’s always dealt with everything. And Alastair, conjured phantasmagorical madness that he is, plays nice. Most of the time.

Dean knows he isn’t real. He knows he isn’t real- 

“But, hm, we start talking about that too long and it turns into a real chicken-egg debacle, doesn’t it?” Alastair is cleaning his scalpel set. Dean is polishing his gun.

Sam is in the room so Dean says nothing.

“Because we can go with ‘I think and therefore I am’- but we know I’m just here because you broke so perfectly those winged rats couldn’t scoop up all the pieces, mm? And the real me is dead. Burned, gone. Maybe it’s because you miss me?”

Dean grits his teeth, hunches his shoulders a little more, ignores the sensation of touch, hand smoothing down the swell of his back. Not real.

“Miss all the… fun we had? You and me and the rack and a soul and a bottle of wine to share while we worked them over together…”

Lips on his neck, breath ghosting on his skin. “Or the years before that? I know as well as you-“ He chuckled. “I am you. I know we’re a dirty masochistic little slut under all that, uhm, bravado.”

Dean knows how to make him stop, for an hour or two. But he doesn’t need worried glances when he rolls up his sleeves.

The scars old and new on the tops and sides of thighs itch. Alastair chuckles again, wheezing, he never laughs properly, never vocalizes it like a real person. Maybe he’d forgotten how to after so many years in Hell.

He’s not here anyways and Dean doubts the memory of him would be up for answering any questions.

The table is polished mahogany and there’s fresh wet blood spatter on the surface and the walls are cobblestone and Sam is tied to the rack, screaming, not looking through lore, and-

Dean blinks it all away, finally brings his head up to level a glare at the apparition. He’s tired. He’s so, so, tired, he wants it to stop but-

He’s fine. He’s Dean-fucking-Winchester, shit doesn’t phase him, he can always, always, manage.

“Look where your daddy ended up with that attitude. Don’t tell me you still idolize him?”

Dean blinks, real slow, says nothing. Just glances at Sam as if to reaffirm the vision wasn’t real. Alastair hums, slow and indulgent, and picks up a thumbscrew flecked with blood and rust. Starts cleaning that, too.

“At least  _ I _ know that’s a mistake, at the end of the day. I taught you better.”

Not real.

The real Alastair told Dean he was beyond what his father sculpted him into, beyond that little toy soldier made of beaten tin,

Told him he was an animal and unlike anyone else those words didn’t feel like an insult coming from the demon’s lips.

Animal. Instinctual. Raw and ready and perfect and all mine, my Righteous Man, my Sistine Chapel.

Dean let out a long sigh through his nose and shook his head, stared down at his cleaned and oiled gun. Put it away in his duffel, footsteps heavy thuds on the carpet.

Alastair sits in the back seat when he drives. Reaches up between the front seats every once in a while to change it from playing one of Dean’s cassettes to some sort of golden oldies station. Dean ignores it. Not real. He knows it’s the Stones or Zeppelin that’s really playing as Al hums along, whistles along to  _ Steppin’ Out With My Baby  _ and  _ Cheek to Cheek  _ and  _ The Carioca _ .

Sometimes he reaches around and slowly disembowels Sammy when the kid turns his head against the window to catch a nap before it’s his turn to drive. Dean identifies it all; liver, kidneys, spleen, pancreas. He chokes it down when Alastair shoves it wet and slick and bloody in between his lips, and he cries silently when he hears Sam scream not for real. Because Sam is asleep. And they are the only two people in the car. And Alastair is wheezing, not real, not real, Dean has never more wanted to drive into a fucking tree and be done with it. One of the cuts on his thigh opens up and it’s bleeding into the denim jeans and sticking to his skin all tight and hot and wet and Dean remembers the time the real Alastair mummified him and a wail dies in the back of his throat.

Pain means it’s not real. Because the visions peter out and fizzle and disappear when Dean’s thigh is gaining another thin scar, and blood is sliding down, down down over pale freckled skin and the last thing he hears is, “Good choice for placement, mm? Safer than the wrists, but that femoral artery… still so close if you ever do decide to end it. Think we’ll end up in Hell, again?”

Alastair is there in Dean’s blurry vision when Sammy jumps in the cage. He’s there on the sidelines when Sammy’s back, shiny and new with no soul. He’s there, he’s there, he’s a constant niggling parasite spooning Dean’s brain and he doesn’t know if there’s an unmarred piece of skin on his thighs under all the ropy, overlapping scars. 

He’s there when Cas goes off the deep end, and shares his views on how all angels are conniving little rats and Dean shouldn’t be surprised and does he really think an angel of all things could ever-

He’s there when Death is, and the entity older than time itself looks straight at him, and then to Dean, and frowns. And says nothing. Not-real-Alastair laughs. Wheezes. Grins.

He’s there when the wall crumbles. And always makes sure to point out when Sam’s eyes track to a specific point and stay there. When he cringes back, when he hunches down, like he shrugs and grimaces like all he wants to do is tell someone not-real to shut the fuck up and leave him alone.

Dean notices when Sam stares at him like he’s just had his heart torn out. No- lower. Disemboweled. Dean doesn’t know how to help, doesn’t want to tell Sammy to hurt himself, doesn’t know how to tell him that it never gets better and it’s never gotten better and Alastair is sprawling out in Sammy’s lap and Dean wonders where Lucifer is.

The warehouse… Dean helps. The only way he knows how. He grips Sam’s hand and digs his thumb in where it hurts and Sam’s in pain but Dean can tell in his haunted, tired gaze that he’s had worse. That there’s always worse, and the scars on the tops and sides of his thighs and his shins and his upper arms itch like a son of a bitch but he’s always got his flannels and jeans and when he rolls up his sleeves it’s smooth, white, freckled, clean, he’s fine, there’s no surface damage, nothing no one can ever see because if they see then he’s lost.

And Alastair laughs. Wheezes. Chokes on it, there’s blood on Dean’s hands and Sam’s guts on the floor, rosy and red and wet. But Dean can tell that Lucifer, wherever he was, is gone, for now.

Sam says he saw Dean. And Dean closes his eyes for a second and remembers all the times he saw Sam, not-real, and he understands.

Sam breaks for real and Dean doesn’t know if he can make it alone. No Sam, no Cas, no Bobby, no fucking nothing but him and Alastair, who rides shotgun, now, Sam’s spot, and Dean knows he won’t break because he’s already been ground down to dust.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little odd for me, just trying out a rambling sort of style. Let me know what you think of this little experiment, advice/commentary is much appreciated!


End file.
